


You Sleeping Dogs

by silverbirch



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2019-11-24 19:10:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18168929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverbirch/pseuds/silverbirch
Summary: Klaus and Diego; endings, beginnings, and a couple more endings for good measure. A tragicomic fiasco in four acts.





	1. The Good Times

Diego had wandered by the station, since he was in the neighborhood and he still knew some of the guys. He was nosing around for information - _something_ had riled up all the Triad members he knew down by Dockside, and he was eager to know what. Something big. Something that could make a difference.

He saw the nameplate by chance, walking a few steps behind Beaman, who kept trying to lengthen his strides and put Diego and his questions out of earshot. Diego had tailed worse in his day. He’d gotten a few hints out of him - press him a little and info just came squirting out, dude was like a Gogurt- when the name _Sergeant Eudora Patch_ , etched on a plaque atop a painfully well-organized desk, caught his eye.

“Oho,” Diego said, snatching up the little placard, letting it dazzle in the buzzing fluorescent lights. “Patch made sergeant, huh?”

“Oh yeah,” Beaman said, nodding so hard his glasses practically flew off. “You should wait here, and congratulate her. I’m sure she’d love to hear from you.”

“Actually-”

“Wait right here,” Beaman insisted, and even took Diego by the shoulders and gently guided him to a chair, as if a poindexter like him could make Diego do anything. “I’m sure she’ll be along… really soon.”

“Beaman-”

“Must go, very busy, _so_ sorry,” Beaman said, before disappearing into an office and, from the sound of it, locking the door behind him. The office was windowed; Diego caught a glimpse of Beaman, looking harassed, before the blinds went opaque.

Pussy.

Well. Trying to sweet-talk Patch sounded a hell of a lot more fun than sweet-talking Beaman. Or any-kind-of-talking Beaman. Dude was a sweatsock.

He didn’t have to wait long. Patch announced her presence with a series of footsteps, a crisp sigh, and an exasperated, “Get your feet _off_ my desk, Diego.”

“Oh shit,” Diego said, turning with a smirk. “This is _your_ desk? I thought they only gave them to important people.”

“Feet. Off. Now,” Patch said, sitting lightly in her own chair.

“Good to see you, Patch,” Diego said, settling his boots on the floor. He supposed it was only polite.

“Wish I could say the same, Diego.”

“Having a job suits you.”

“You ought to try it some time,” Patch said. “You know, an actual job, not beating up drug dealers and making a hash of due process.”

“I have a vocation. Besides, I got kicked out of the Academy, remember.”

“Pretty sure Arby’s is always hiring, Diego. I think you’d look cute in the little hat,” Patch said, opening a manila folder and going through the sheaf of paperwork inside.

“Think so?” Diego said. “What else would I look cute in?”

“You still have that denim three-piece? The one you wore on the cover of _Teen Beat_?” Patch said, raising an eyebrow.

Oh, low blow. It’s not like Diego had any control over early aughts fashion. The claws were out. Diego _loved_ the claws.

“You collected my clippings?” Diego asked smoothly. “I knew it. You had the poster, didn’t you. The one where my shirt was unbuttoned. Come on, admit it.”

“No,” Patch said sweetly. “I was always a fan of the _tall_ one. What’s his name--Luther? He’s a hunk.”

The claws he could deal with. Maybe not the fangs so much.

“Take it from an expert. Luther’s a tool.”

“Must run in the family, then,” Patch said. “Look, Diego, as _delightful_ as it is to sit here and be subjected to… whatever species of flirting you think this is, I’m extremely busy and important. How about you tell me what you want from me-" 

Diego opened his mouth.

“-No, no no no, no. What do you want from me, _in my professional capacity_?”

“There’s some new faces down Dockside-”

“I’m not prepared to comment at this time,” Patch said, clasping her hands together and giving him a bright, professional smile. “On a personal note-”

“Get personal, babe. Make my day.”

“-If I find you in Dockside, stirring up trouble, I won’t arrest you, Diego. I’ll just shoot you in the face and leave you in a dumpster. You understand me?”

“Oh, come on. Not my face,” Diego said, leaning over her desk and giving his Soft Feature On a Slow Newsday Smile.

“You don’t take hints very well, do you?” Patch said, scowling.

“I’ll tell you what I take well,” Diego purred. No, wait, that sounded wrong. Shit.

“Diego-”

“Well, _helloooooooooo_ Diego!” came a loopy sing-song from a few feet behind him.

Diego’s eyes widened. No, not him, not by the name of every merciless cock-blocking bastard fucking angel-

Diego turned. Half-standing, half-wilting between two officers, which was ridiculous overkill because the man in question didn’t look capable of resisting a stiff breeze, much less arrest, was his brother, Klaus, dressed in one-quarter of a cow and three-quarters of a flamingo.

“You uh, know this guy?” asked Nikolas, that chubby prick, sniggering out the sides of his oh-so-punchable mouth.

“I-”

“Oh, he _knows_ me, gentlemen,” Klaus said, eyes bright. Bloodshot, and holy shit, _really badly bruised_ , but bright.

Diego was tempted, oh Lord was he tempted, to say something like _nope, never met him_. But he looked closer. Klaus didn’t just look bad - Klaus always looked like he’d just lost a cage match with RuPaul- he looked _ill._ Broken. Face bruised, lip split, and two of his fingers had a splint on them, and his eyes were sunken. Dehydrated, bad.

Something went murderously red in Diego’s head, and he was on his feet before he knew it, taking Klaus’ face in his hands and turning it this way and that. Klaus grinned, spacily. His teeth were outlined in blood.

“Yeah, he’s my...” Then Diego noticed that Klaus was _handcuffed,_ of all things. “What the hell are you even arresting him for?”

“Vagrancy,” said Nikolas.  

“Look at him, you fat asshole, do you like to arrest people for being the _victim_ of a crime?” Diego said. Nikolas’ face went purple. The other cop, who looked about twelve years old, went for his cuffs.

“You little prick-” Nikolas began.

Diego managed, just barely, not to go for a knife. He couldn’t use it anyway, the density of police officers in his immediate area had suddenly quadrupled. Beaman, the chickenshit, came out of his hidey hole and came towards the disaster waiting to happen, looking like he saw piles of paperwork in his future.

“Umm, innocent bystander here,” Klaus said, looking alarmed. “Maybe I can just-”

“ _Get your fucking hands off him_ ,” Diego snarled, and he heard that sudden buzzing in his ears he got when someone was about to die.

 _“Gentlemen_ ,” Patch said as she stood, voice ice cold and sharp as a straight razor. “That’s enough macho bullshit for this century. Diego, you said you know this guy?”

“Yeah,” Diego ground out, still staring directly into Nikolas’ puffy face.

“Do we have an ID on him?”

The other officer, the one with spots, said, “Nothing in his pockets but lint. No ID.”

“He’s not a vagrant, he’s staying with me,” Diego said recklessly, kissing his peace of mind and personal space goodbye.

“Oh, is he?” Patch said, raising eyebrows. “How… interesting. Officer Nikolas, get those cuffs off him. Diego, you still driving that piece of shit?”

“Eleanor is still with me, yeah,” Diego said, breathing deep and trying to relax.

“Sergeant-”

“That was not a request,” Patch snapped. “Get the cuffs off him. Let Diego take his… _friend_ , here, home.”

“Oh, we’re _more_ than friends,” Klaus said, giggling. “So, so much more.”

“Called it,” Nikolas muttered. Beaman, the skinny fuck, smothered a chuckle behind a cough.

“Take him to my car,” Diego said, pinching the bridge of his nose. Regular blue balls _and_ didn’t-get-to-fight-some-cops blue balls? Today was the worst.

“Sure,” the tweenycopper said. “Front seat, or trunk?”

“Ooh! Trunk, trunk!” Klaus said, clapping his newly uncuffed hands.

Diego was tempted to agree, then remembered that his trunk had some, uh, stains from a recent case that he wasn’t all that eager to explain to the fuzz.

“Front seat,” he said, handing the young’n his keys.

“Keep him off the street,” Patch said. “And you might want to get him to a hospital. He looks pretty rough.”

“Yeah he does,” Diego said. And if he found out Nikolas had _anything to do_ with it, Diego would slit his fat throat, police officer be damned.

“I’m shocked, Diego,” Patch said, and there was something… kinda evaluating, in her gaze? Made a nice change from her default expression that seemed to say whatever brand of bullshit Diego was selling, she’d seen it ten thousand times before. “I didn’t know you cared. About… anything.”

“You like a sensitive guy, huh?” Diego said, smelling a salvageable situation on the wind. “Maybe I’m a secret poet.”

“Maybe you love to dance,” Klaus stage whispered. Diego ignored that.

“Okay there, Walt Whitman,” Patch said, rolling her eyes. “Get your ‘friend’ out of here, and don’t darken my door again.”

“Open plan office, gorgeous. You don’t have a door.”

“Get yourself out of here, too,” Patch said, sitting back down.

“Tell you what. Give me your phone number, and I will.”

“Diego, fuck off.”

Diego gave her another smirk. A smirk that very quickly disappeared as Klaus shook off the guiding hand of the twelve-year-old cop, grabbed Diego by the bicep, and gave him a kiss on the lips. He smelled like weed and booze, which was par for the course, and a bit of vomit, which was also normal but a lot less nice. Diego could tell the _giant asshole_ was just grinning mouth-to-mouth, but he knew damn well what it would look like from the outside, given Klaus’ talent for street theater.

“Merf!” Diego managed, before he shoved Klaus back a step.

“My _hero_ ,” Klaus gushed, before he allowed an actively cackling Officer Puberty to guide him towards the door.  

“How romantic,” Beaman said, biting his index finger.

“Fucking _called it_ ,” Nikolas said again, all anger forgotten in the face of Diego’s humiliation. Basically every cop in the precinct was there, Diego noticed, and was that _money changing hands?_

Assholes.

“It’s not like that, he’s my brother,” Diego said weakly.

“That… doesn’t make it better, Diego,” Patch said, eyes bright. “Now go, Diego. Tend thy garden.”

“I’m not tending anything,” Diego grumbled, but he knew when he was beaten. He managed not to throw any knives at any of the chortling Adam’s Apples between him and door, but it was a near thing.

 

<><><>

 

“And just what the _fuck_ was that?” Diego growled, putting Eleanor in gear. “And c’mon, fasten your seat belt, Klaus, you know how I drive." 

Klaus had some difficulty working the seatbelt, but he complied. Diego noticed Klaus’ right hand was swollen almost purple. That had to hurt, assuming Klaus could feel anything at all, which Diego doubted.

“ _That_ was divine intervention,” Klaus said, leaning back. Now that he didn’t have an audience, he was fading. Diego was alarmed to see him going gray. Klaus had one skinny arm propped up on the car door, and Diego noticed bruises on them that looked an awful lot like fingerprints.

Diego clenched his teeth until his jaw creaked. He fixed his eyes on the rearview mirror, and pulled out of the parking space. Focus on the drive. Focus on the drive. “Explain.”

“You’re never gonna get anywhere with that girl,” Klaus said, managing half a giggle. “Seriously. Your game is a _disaster_.”

“I’m never gonna get anywhere with her _now,_ ” Diego said.

“Diego, bud, you were like, one second away from showing her how many _pushups_ you can do.”

“I was not.”

Klaus managed to be silent for the entire time it took to get out of the parking lot. Stop the presses, a world record, ladies and gentlemen.

“Why does your car always smell like old bananas?” Klaus complained. Diego thought that was a bit rich, considering that Klaus smelled like he’d not only _slept_ in a dumpster, but lived a long and fruitful life in one, dying at a ripe old age surrounded by weeping grandchildren.

“Dunno,” Diego said with a shrug.

“ _Total_ disaster,” Klaus said again, his eyes fluttering closed. He didn’t fall asleep so much as pass out, and wasn’t _that_ convenient timing on his part.

In his blissfully silent car, Diego made plans. Get Klaus back to his place. Get him back on his feet. Maybe try, for the millionth time, to get him something approaching sober.

Then find whoever hurt Klaus and murder the everloving fuck out of them, as drawn-out and painfully as he could possibly arrange. His hands clenched around Eleanor’s steering wheel so hard the leather squeaked in protest. They’d die screaming. Thinking about it made him feel better.

Diego liked having plans. He put on the radio -Sarah Mclachlan- and since Klaus was dead to the world, he even sang along, a bit.

 

<><><>

 

It started with the broken jaw.

Diego liked Klaus as much as he liked any of his siblings, which was to say, not much. Not Perfect Luther and his bride-to-be Miss Perfect Allison, not that space-warping ‘oooh lookit me I know what physics are, don’t you love me Dad’ jerkface Five, not… well, Ben was alright, he guessed. Vanya… who could have an opinion about her? She was never _around._ And when she was, she cried. Diego never cried. Never ever ever.

Klaus was always _talking._ They were all always _talking,_ but Klaus talked the most, like there was some prize at the end of the day for Most Words or whatever. And talking was, well... it wasn’t _hard,_ Diego could do anything, but they always interrupted him, when it took him a little extra time, and it made him so mad.

“Go spend time with your brother, Diego,” Mom said, perfect in her pencil skirt, her voice warm like exactly nobody else’s ever was when talking to him. “He’s lonely.”

“Wh-why sh-should I?” Diego asked mulishly. They were in his room, folding laundry. The old man was at some kind of conference, so Pogo and Mom had decreed a bit of time off. There’d be hell to pay when he got back, but Diego wasn’t thinking about it.

Mom sat beside him on the bed. She rested a gentle hand on his shoulder, and because they were alone, he let her. “Because I said so, of course,” she said, and Diego laughed and pressed his head into her side. She cupped the back of his head, and for a split second there was love. Then Diego pulled away, because getting used to something nice was just begging God, or Dad, to arbitrarily take it away.

“Let’s take him his smoothie,” Mom said, standing. She held her hands out to Diego, and he took them, letting her pull him up.

“Oof, such a big boy!” Mom said. As though she wasn’t capable of picking up one end of the thirty-foot oak dining room table to vacuum under it, which Diego had seen her do.

“D-d-d-” Diego tried to say, before he stopped, scowling at his feet.

“Focus, Diego. Picture the word, then say it.”

“D-Do I have to?” Diego complained.

“Yes,” Mom said gently. “Come on, let’s go to the kitchen.”

In the end, Diego carried the tray. Two glasses, each containing a chocolate and peanut butter smoothie, full of fruits and vegetables. Diego had mentioned it looked nice, so Mom made him one, too. Each had a twisty straw in her son’s respective favorite colors; purple for Klaus, and black for Diego. It was the little things she did that proved she loved them.

“Klaus, honey?” Mom said, knocking on the door. “Can I come in? I have a surprise for you.”

A vaguely affirmative grunt came from the other side of the door. Grace opened it. Klaus was in bed, still wearing his pajamas - and wouldn’t Dad love _that_ \- and looked bruised and bored. Diego didn’t know why Klaus was hiding in his bedroom, there was nothing wrong with his legs. Maybe it was just because he was a wuss.

“Your brother Diego wanted to spend some time with you,” Mom said. Klaus glanced at Diego, who gave a tiny shrug. Klaus rolled his eyes. It made Diego feel better, somehow.

“Isn’t that nice?” Mom said, handing Klaus his smoothie. He made a wishy-washy gesture with one hand and took a slurp. Diego winced a little when he saw the bruising on Klaus’ gums.

“You boys have fun!” Mom said, _not_ giving Diego a pat on the head or a hug or any of that baby crap as she swept towards the door. “Please bring the dishes back once you’re done.”

The door closed behind them. Klaus stared at Diego over his smoothie. Diego took a sip of his own, and made a face. Ew, vegetables.

Silence stretched.

“Al-Allison says you should stick to flats,” Diego said.

None of them spoke sign language - when Pogo had suggested adding it to the curriculum, Dad had gone off on a twenty-minute spiel about right-thinking people not acceding to the ransom demands of the genetically subnormal, whatever that meant- but Klaus made a gesture that Diego recognized anyway. He laughed.

“Hey, if you want me to le-leave, just sa-say so.”

Klaus repeated the gesture, with both hands. Diego set his smoothie down on Klaus’ desk, and grinned at his brother, for the first time in ever.

“He-hey, you can’t in-interrupt me. This is going to be fun,” Diego said as he sat down at the foot of Klaus’ bed.

Klaus rolled his eyes again and sat back on his pillows, but he didn’t tell Diego to leave, so what the heck.

 

<><><>

 

Back home, Diego was working up a sweat doing tai chi. It was always warm in his room behind the gym - he shared space with the furnace. He’d shucked off his shirt before starting his routine, because he only had the two turtlenecks for Work and they were a bitch to air-dry. Not to mention how nasty his harness got if he didn’t take it off every so often. 

Other than knife fights, the complete discography of The Kills, and that one burger place down by the river that did fried mushrooms, nothing soothed him like tai chi.

Knife fight’d be better, though. Maybe once Klaus could tie his shoelaces they could spar.

Speaking of Klaus…

His routine was interrupted by a sudden scream of terror. Diego turned, knife appearing in his hand.

“Diego!” Klaus shrieked. “Diego, for fuck’s sake, there’s a ghost in here! Some elderly Bolshevik died of alcohol poisoning in this room, and his spirit haunts me. Begone, spirit!”

“Oh, for… that’s not a ghost, Klaus. That’s Yuri.”

The skinny, balding old man, whose nose was red and many times broken, put a hand over his stained white coat. “Am Yuri,” he said.

Klaus was scrabbling upright in Diego’s cot, eyes wide with terror. “Who the _hell_ is Yuri?”

“He’s a doctor.”

“Am doctor,” Yuri said, his accent about a nine and a half on the Count Chocula scale.

“Oh,” Klaus said. “Oh good. Diego, why is Yuri here? I need a place to crash, not a back-alley abortion.”

“Glad to hear it,” Diego said, making his knife disappear. “He’s a good guy. Owes me some favors.”

Yuri stuck a stethoscope to Klaus’ bare chest, listening to his lungs. Klaus had the same frozen wariness of a prey animal who had just spotted a cobra.

“Is there a reason you brought the _sketchiest doctor on earth?”_ Klaus said.

“No talk, am listening,” Yuri admonished, waving an extremely filthy finger in Klaus’ face.

“I’m just saying, I have insurance. _You_ have insurance. You could take me to an _actual_ doctor.”

“An actual doctor, who will want actual bloodwork?” Diego suggested, raising his eyebrows. Klaus considered this for a moment.

“Yuri may proceed,” Klaus said, waving a benediction with his non-swollen hand.

“Am Yuri,” Yuri said.

“I know, dear fellow, I know.”

Klaus allowed himself to be examined - not like he could have put up any meaningful resistance. Diego had carried him through the gym, stripped most of the stinking rags off him, and rinsed him down in ice-cold water, and Klaus hadn’t even _woken up._

Afterward, Yuri waved Diego over for a consultation. Like a real doctor, with a real license.

“Dehydrated,” Yuri said, nodding. “Broken ribs, not so bad. Much bruising. Stay in bed, few weeks. Need give fluids.”

“Give fluids-” Diego began, before he staggered backwards and just _barely_ managed not to vomit as Yuri pulled an IV bag out of the battered duffel at his feet, complete with needle. Diego felt dizzy.

“Excuse me,” Diego said, and fled to the other side of the room to practice his deep breathing.

“Eh?” he heard Yuri say.

“Ignore him, sweet Yuri. Juice me up, chop chop. Tell me… you’re a real doctor, yes?”

“Am doctor,” Yuri affirmed. Diego was glad he couldn’t see the needle going into Klaus’ arm. Just knowing it was happening was bad enough.

“Is _veterinarian,”_ Diego called over his shoulder, for accuracy’s sake. And also because he knew where this conversation was going.

“Aha,” Klaus said. “I… yes, that makes sense. _Thanks_ , Diego. Tell me Yuri, do you happen to have your prescription pad…?”

“Not a chance, Klaus,” Diego said firmly. He had his back to Klaus, but Diego sensed his pout anyway.

Yuri departed, after entrusting Diego with a bottle of what he suspected were cat antibiotics. Diego waved the old man out, and asked him to come back in a few days. Klaus watched all of this through half lidded eyes.

“Where the hell am I?” Klaus asked, peering around. “Is this the DiegoCave? Where’s the giant penny?”

“This is my place. You’ve been here before,” Diego said.

“Have I?” Klaus said, looking bewildered. “Ah. Well. It’s very, um, _bijou._ ”

“You said that last time, too,” Diego said, sitting down on his bed. How many more times could Klaus hit the bottom and come back up again? And how many times could Diego be there to catch him?

“Oh,” Klaus said weakly. “Diego, it’s been a rough couple of months.”

A rough ten years, is what he meant. Klaus leaned forward and rested his head on Diego’s shoulder, and sighed when Diego put a hand through his curly hair and rubbed the back of his neck.

“About that...” Diego steered Klaus upright and took his wrist, gently turning it over while Klaus watched him, eyes oddly grave. Now that Klaus was clean - well, clean _ish-_ the bruises stood out horribly, livid purple on Klaus’ pale skin. “I want _names_ , baby.”

“Eustace Crabapple,” Klaus replied, waving an extravagant hand, expression clamming up again. “No, wait. I’ve got a better one. Victoria Q. Fagballs!”

Diego shook his head, waving it aside. “That isn’t what I meant.”

“I know what you meant, hot stuff, and it’s not gonna happen.”

“Klaus-”

“ _Diego._ Shut up, and listen to me. Did you ever stop and think that if you went out and Steven Segall’d someone on my behalf, _I’d be stuck with them forever_?”

Diego froze.

“Yeah. Now you get it,” Klaus said, taking his arm back.

“I didn’t think of that,” Diego admitted.

“I didn’t think you had.”

Diego took a deep breath. Then two, then three.

“It’s very kind of you,” Klaus said after a minute. “In a homicidal sort of way. You always were such a sweet boy.”

“Not really.”

“Sweet to me,” Klaus murmured, and this time Diego saw it coming.

Klaus kissed him, gently, clumsy around his split lip and loose tooth. Diego closed his eyes, very aware of Klaus’ swollen hand resting on his bare collarbone. After a few breathless moments though, he gently pulled away.

“I don’t think that’s what you need right now,” Diego said. “You need sleep. And peace. And vitamins.” _And to get clean,_ Diego didn’t say, because why start that fight right now?

“I need a lot of things,” Klaus said with a sigh, leaning backwards into Diego’s pillow.

“Get some sleep, Klaus,” Diego said, standing. He glanced at the clock over the camp stove. _Shit_ , he needed to mop the gym before the night crew showed up.

Klaus snickered, closing his eyes. “You wouldn’t say that, if you knew what my dreams were like.”

Diego turned to leave, snagging a tank top from the floor.

“Diego?”

He turned. Klaus’ eyes were still closed, but his face was taut.

“Yeah, man?”

“Could you - fuck. I’m sorry. Could you stay?”

“I have to go get some stuff done-”

“Five minutes,” Klaus said, squeezing the words out. “ _Please_.”

Diego sighed. “Alright, five minutes.”

Klaus turned towards the wall and Diego reflected that it was good Klaus was so damn skinny, because the bed was kind of small to share. Klaus made a quiet, little-boy noise as Diego slid into the squeaky cot beside him, that trailed off as Diego threw an arm around him and pulled him close.

“It was bad, wasn’t it,” Diego asked as Klaus shook.

“Yes,” Klaus said. “No. I don’t know. It’s always bad. This isn’t, though.”

“Yeah,” Diego said, and silently added, _for now._

Diego had promised him five minutes, but Klaus was asleep within two. Diego left without waking him.

 

<><><>

 

“So wh-what’s it like, seeing dead people?” Diego asked.

He sat across from Klaus in the library, ostensibly studying Latin, but Diego had his feet up on the table and was throwing balls of wadded-up note paper at Klaus, and making them bend around him at the last second.

Klaus gave him a look and made a slightly annoyed sound behind his wired jaw. He scribbled on a notebook in front of him, five large letters.

_SUCKS_

“Really?”

Klaus took the notebook back and scribbled some more.

_SUCKS!!!_

“Aww,” Diego said. “I think it’d be cool. I bet they’re all gross. Li-like all Fr-Frankenstein and stuff.”

Diego threw another ball at Klaus, who didn’t flinch, even as it came within a centimeter of hitting him in the face before curling around his head like it had somewhere else to be. Diego tried to get it to twist into a full rotation, but no matter how hard he threw them, it always lost juice right around the back of Klaus’ head and fell to the floor.

Scribble scribble.

_What are you doing?_

“Pra-Practicing,” Diego said. “Very important, Dad says.”

Dad didn’t understand why Diego couldn’t just… _move things,_ unless he’d held them in his hand and set them in motion. Diego had spent hours just last weekend staring at a crystal pendulum suspended in a sealed box, trying to make it move. Diego couldn’t explain it. If he touched something, it _was_ him. Once it was moving, making it twist wasn’t any harder than moving his little finger. The weight of the object didn’t manner, as Prom King Luther had learned when Diego beaned him with a cue ball thrown around a corner.

Dad insisted it was a mental block. One that he would help Diego move past.

“Ye-yes s-s-sir,” Diego had said, looking at the floor.

“And speak _properly,_ Number Two!” Dad had barked. “A man’s words are as his spine and his good right arm. They must be firm, strong, precise, and deadly.”

Nothing made Diego stammer more than being told not to, so he’d said nothing. Good thing Dad was also a big believer in _seen-but-not-heard._

 _Study._ Klaus shoved the notebook into Diego’s face and tapped it several times.

“Why? It’s s-so _stupid._ ”

_Because dad says, dummy._

“I’m not a dummy!”

_Are too. And short. _

“Why you-" 

If Luther had said anything like that, Diego would have gone for his throat, or if that snotty-little-daddy’s-boy Five had sneered at him, as he liked to sneer. (Though taking a swing at Five was stupid, he’d just teleport behind you and give you a wedgie or a kick to the nuggets. Diego had learned his lesson after the seventh or eighth time. Who said he was a dummy?)

With Klaus, he just growled and started throwing balled-up paper. Klaus started throwing them back, before he tried to laugh and made the _ow-that-hurt_ noise he made when he strained his healing jaw.

“Sorry,” Diego said. “You okay?”

Klaus made a _kinda_ gesture. He was very expressive with his hands and eyebrows. Diego liked his eyebrows. They were like little mouths that couldn’t talk over him.

“ _Boys_ ,” Pogo said with asperity, entering the room and wincing as he saw the carnage spread out all around them. “Is this what we call translating Plutarch?” 

Klaus nodded enthusiastically.

“Who’s that, like, Mickey’s dog?” Diego asked blankly.

Pogo shook his head, but Diego thought he saw affection in the old monkey’s eyes. “Perhaps the two of you should burn off some of this energy in the park. Return later, refreshed and ready to learn…?”

“Aw, suh-sweet!” Diego said, scooting his legs off the table, noticing Pogo’s reaction to the squeaking sound. “Come on Klaus, let’s go!”

Klaus shook his head, looking paler than usual.

“C’mon, c’mon!” Diego said, grabbing Klaus by the wrists. “Before he changes his mind!”

Klaus allowed himself to be dragged, but snatched up his pen and notebook as Diego dragged him towards the door.

It was cold in the park, spring having not quite sprung, and Klaus walked fast, hands shoved in the pockets of his winter coat. Diego had to hurry to keep up with him.

“You don’t like this park, d-do you?” Diego asked, curious. Klaus didn’t like a lot of places, he noticed, looking back. The public library, or the deli where they’d all sneak off and get pastrami sandwiches. He flat out _refused_ to go to the arcade down the street, even though he was the best at skeeball.

Well, _Diego_ was the best, but nobody would play with him anymore, so.

Klaus shook his head.

“Wh-why?”

Klaus jotted something down, using Diego’s back as a desk when Diego was nice enough to turn around. Diego took the notebook.

 _Ghosts._ _LOTS._

“Oh w-wow, really? Where?”

Klaus nodded towards the little duck pond about fifteen feet away. It sat there, looking greenish and cold and uninviting, but not like it was filled with angry zombies. Diego blinked.

Klaus was writing something again.

_People used to skate on it. Warm winter, thin ice. Eight people died, and they’re still there._

“Are they all gross?”

 _Diego they_ _know I’m here!!!_

“Le-Let’s go somewhere else, then.”

Klaus nodded frantically, and they walked very quickly - Klaus kept glancing behind them in a way that made Diego’s skin crawl- towards a copse of damp pine trees at the edge of the park. They stopped, breath steaming in the cold air.

“Any ghosts?”

Klaus shook his head, before he sat down, putting his back to a tree and closing his eyes. Diego looked at the ground - it was a little wet, Mom would scold them- but he sat beside Klaus.

“Move over, fatso, don’t hog the whole tree.”

Klaus snorted but budged up. Diego rested his head on the tree. It was nice here. Cold, but nice.

“It must be scary.”

Klaus, eyes still closed, nodded.

“Sorry I made you come here.”

Klaus made an O.K. gesture with one hand, then his eyes opened in surprise as Diego took his other hand. Which was just because Klaus was scared. _Diego_ was never scared, but other people didn’t make it look fun.

“It’s okay,” Diego said. “They can’t hurt you, right?”

Klaus shook his head, and smiled hesitantly at Diego. It made Diego feel… not bad. Not like his siblings usually made him feel, anyway. Klaus turned abruptly red - Diego assumed from the cold- and looked down at their joined hands. He didn’t let go, though.

Diego wondered if this was what having a friend was like. He hoped so.

 

<><><>

 

For the most part, Klaus slept, and Diego worked.

It was lonely the first few days. Klaus slept pretty much around the clock, and had the sweats and the shakes when he was awake. At night he huddled close to Diego, eyes open and not sleeping, but making involuntary noises and startling at nothing. It wasn’t the best thing for Diego’s REM cycle, but what the hell. Diego monitored his fever, which was never too high but never went away entirely, and made sure he drank a lot of water. There wasn’t much else to do but wait.

And work. But only the gym stuff, not his actual work. He scrubbed the floor until it shone, and waxed it for good measure. He scraped all the rust off the old barbells. He scrubbed the soap off the warehouse windows and dusted the rafters. Slowly, the old place started to look like a workout space in which Gymbunny Luther might be caught dead. Not that Diego wanted his Paul Bunyan ass around. Nigel was ecstatic, _thrilled_ with Diego’s new work ethic.

It wasn’t Diego’s real work, though. That was on hold, for now.

And it was killing him, but that’s what you do for family.

Diego came back to his room with hot pastrami sandwiches in a grease-soaked bag to find Klaus, barefoot and looking like he’d just been dragged from a river, but upright and sitting at Diego’s workbench, wearing some of Diego’s ratty old clothes. He managed a ghastly parody of a smile at Diego’s entrance.

“Hey handsome,” Klaus said, sniffing. “Hey, that smells… really good. I think I might actually want food. That’s _so weird.”_

“Progress is being made,” Diego said, tossing Klaus a foil-wrapped sandwich underhand, and wincing as he completely failed to catch it. Klaus, like all of them, used to be able to catch a fly out of the air with chopsticks, all Karate-Kid style, to say nothing of being able to parkour across the rooftops of Venice or kill a man with a Yale key.

“Ohhh yes. Bless you, my son,” Klaus said, making the Sign of the Cross.

“I prefer cash.” Diego held out the second bag, which contained two milkshakes in a cardboard cup holder. Chocolate for Klaus, strawberry for Diego. Klaus needed the calories real bad, he figured. He took a slurp of his own, hoping to inspire Klaus. Goddamn, that was a good milkshake

“Is this from Houlihan’s?” Klaus asked, staring at the styrofoam cup.

“Yeah man, sandwiches too.”

Klaus looked down a his lap, and Diego was suddenly afraid that he was going to _cry_.

“Whoa, Klaus-”

“No, no no no. No,” Klaus said, shaking his head and rubbing at his eyes. “I’m not, I’m not. I’m sorry, it’s just… hard for me to be… niced at, right now.”

“Who says I’m being nice to _you?_ I go to Houlihan’s all the time, ya knob.”

“It’s across town.”

“Eleanor likes to travel,” Diego said. “For fuck’s sake, eat. You’re looking skinny even for you.”

They ate in silence for a while, Klaus wincing a bit around his loose tooth. Diego reminded himself to ask Yuri if he did any dentistry on the side.

“What the hell happened, Klaus?” Diego asked.

Klaus shook his head. “No.”

“No?”

“No,” Klaus said. “I know how this goes. I’ll drop a couple of details - not the worst ones, you’re such a candyass about these things- and you’ll get up, change into your spandex, and go take out your frustrations on some innocent rapist or serial arsonist who was just minding his own business, and I’ll be here, sitting on my thumbs and listening to locker-room talk about protein shakes through the vents until I take my own life from boredom.”

“It’s not _spandex_ , it’s _leath-_ ”

“I want you here.” Klaus said. “Not slitting up shoplifters. Okay?”

“Shoplifters? That’s below my pay grade, don’t be an asshole.”

“Nobody pays you, for one, and you threw a knife at a _jaywalker_ once.”

“Just to scare him!”

“The important part of that conversation was _I want you here._ ” Klaus said, taking a loud slurp of his milkshake that turned his entire face concave. Okay, so they were a little thick. Diego wasn’t going to break any kneecaps over it. 

“Oh,” Diego said. He didn’t want to see the expression on Klaus’ face, so he stared at his sandwich instead.

“Sucks, don’t it?”

“What?” Diego said, pulling his eyes from the fascinating curves and patterns of the pepperoncini.

“When people want you around.” Klaus said, wiping his face with a handful of napkins.

“ _People_ never have. Just you.”

“True, I am a privileged minority,” Klaus said. “But Diego, I want.”

“What, another sandwich?”

“Diego, I’m also the one person on the planet who knows you’re not actually stupid,” Klaus said, reaching his good hand over to grab Diego by the wrist. “I said, I _want._ ”

“Are you sure-”

“Yes, Christ, _yes._ Just come here. But drop the sandwich first, you savage.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Diego said, for the record.

“That’s us, alright, skipper and first mate of the _USS Good Idea_ ,” Klaus said. “Come _here,_ I said.”

“...I’m the skipper, right?”

Klaus was never about _why_ , he was always about _why not._ And maybe it was because Diego was a little slow on the uptake, but he never managed to find a _reason_ why not.

Klaus gave a contented sigh as Diego’s hands worked their way under the baggy workout shirt he wore, slid up his narrow torso. Klaus was cold to the touch; the poor guy must be freezing. His lips were warm, though, on Diego’s cheek, his jaw, his throat.

Undressing Klaus took a fraction of the time it normally did, because he was wearing a shirt and gym shorts, so there were no straps, or zippers, or buckles, or rows of buttons, or twist ties to be circumvented. Which was good, because Diego had been known to resort to his knives.

“What did you do with my clothes, anyway?” Klaus asked. The lip and the tooth made Klaus’ mouth an issue, so Diego focused on his neck. Klaus made a wild, involuntary sound at the scrape of Diego’s teeth.

“Drove them to the wharf in the dead of night, put a bullet in ‘em,” Diego murmured into Klaus’ collarbone.

“Ugh, that was my best- oh, _fuck_ , Diego-” Klaus said, his breath hitching as Diego nipped an earlobe, hard.

“Working on it,” Diego said. “Christ, you’re always in such a hurry.”

“Careful, careful, ribs-” Klaus said as Diego steered him to the cot, Klaus groping one-handed at Diego’s belt buckle.

“I’m always careful,” Diego said.

And he was, with Klaus. Klaus always had a broken jaw, or broken ribs, or a sprained wrist, or a hairline fracture here, there, everywhere. The whole family was broken; even Diego, with what he knew to be his on-again, off-again relationship with self-awareness, knew that. Trust Klaus to take it so goddamn _literally._

“God, I’ve missed this,” Klaus said, sighing.

Diego didn’t answer. He growled a little when Klaus found the ring on his nipple, which was new.

“ _Really_ , Diego?” Klaus said, giving it the lightest of touches that still felt like lightning bolts.

“Piercing salon owed me a favor,” Diego said.

“They could take you out to _lunch_ , you know.” Klaus said, before he closed his lips around it, tongue performing a maneuver that set Diego’s veins on fire. Diego hissed aloud.

And then that was it for words - then it was just that familiar whipcord body under his hands, familiar nails down his back. Familiar muffled sounds against his chest.

He wondered if it would be different this time. Diego didn’t set much stock in hope - brooding was like, way easier- but he tried, for Klaus’ sake, to believe that it could be.

 

<><><>

 

Diego waited at the foot of the stairs. Dr. Mom was up there in the little exam room with Klaus, who was making all kinds of squawking noises, which Diego figured was to be expected. He wasn’t worried, or anything, but he was bored and he wanted to catch a movie while Dad was still out of town.

Klaus finally appeared, rubbing and flexing his jaw. He looked pale, but he gave Diego a thumbs up.

“How’re you feeling?”

“I’m _really frigging hungry_ ,” Klaus said. His voice was squeaky and blurry around the edges from disuse, and he winced every other word. “For anything and everything on earth besides a smoothie.”

“H-hot dogs?” Diego suggested hopefully. There was a really good stand just down the street. Klaus considered this a moment, the nodded. Hot dogs it was.

Just then, because Diego had obviously done something to offend God (possibly being born), the Prom King and Queen came in through the front door; Luther rubbing his hand self-consciously on his pants, Allison holding hers like a bouquet of roses to her chest. Ew, _gross._ Five was there too, somehow managing to close the door behind them in a way that implied he was _way_ better at it than Diego ever could be in his wildest dreams.

“Klaus! You’re all better!” Allison said, clapping her hands.

“Ehhhh,” Klaus said, smiling ruefully.

“Oh great, he can talk again,” Five said.

“Hey hey, there’s the Dancing Quee-” Luther began, and Diego _knew_ he didn’t mean to be insulting, he _knew_ that Klaus had arranged for a musical accompaniment as he attempted the stairs wearing Mom’s high heels and one of her poofy veiled hats, he knew on some level that Luther wasn’t making fun of Klaus anymore than Klaus made fun of himself, but everything disappeared in a red flash and he went at Luther, barreling at his stupid tall torso and screaming bloody murder.

Five teleported adroitly out of the way. Allison stepped backwards and rolled her eyes in that _ugh, boooooooooys!_  way of hers, and Klaus probably did the same, Diego was too busy rolling with Luther on the hallway carpet, punching and yelling, to notice.

“Diego, gettoffame-” Luther said, and it made Diego even angrier, because Luther would never _really_ fight back, because he could launch people into the stratosphere and bend a quarter in half with a finger and a thumb, he was stronger than Diego, and every time they fought it was like he was rubbing that in Diego’s face. Diego could bite, though, which he proved as soon as he could. Luther _really_ hollered then.

“Boys, boys!” Pogo said, cane thumping as he charged into the fray. He wasn’t like, _Luther-_ strong, but he was chimpanzee-strong, and he plucked Diego off Luther one-handed like he was picking a daffodil. Luther stood, brushing off his blazer.

“What is _wrong_ with you, you little freak?” Luther demanded.

“Aww, that’s so sweet,” Five drawled. “Diego has a _friend_.”

Pogo sighed and held Diego up higher as he tried to go for Five, feet scrambling in empty air.

“Gentlemen, young miss, please excuse us,” Pogo said grimly, marching a still squirming Diego out of the room by his collar.

Diego was sent to his room forthwith, not hot dogs, no time outside of the house, nothing but a cold compress that Mom gave him - Luther had clocked him on the jaw, very gently, since Diego’s head was still on his shoulders- and a sullen expression.

He had a brace of throwing knives, and he threw them, curving them around the lampshade to hit target on the far wall. Pogo would have Words about chunks taken out of the plaster, but didn’t they all just have _Words_ for Diego.

Someone knocked at his door, timidly.

“Go away, muh-muh-mom!” Diego yelled.

“Not mom,” Klaus said, poking his curly head in. “You okay?”

“Wh-wh-wha-what do you care?” Diego said sullenly. “Go away, Klaus.”

Klaus ignored that, coming fully into the room and shutting the door behind him. He held up a plastic bag in one hand, and shook it.

“Are you sure? Because I’ve got the latest Spider-Man in here,” Klaus said.

Diego considered this.

“Le-leave it and g-get out,” Diego suggested, but his heart wasn’t in it.

“Naw,” Klaus said, and didn’t blink as Diego threw a knife right past his face. He sat down on Diego’s bed, brushing cookie crumbs and a couple of pairs of socks onto the floor. “I picked up a couple others, too. You can read them when I’m done.”

“Fi-fi-fine,” Diego said sullenly, snatching the Spider-Man out of Klaus’ hand. Klaus grinned.

They read quietly for awhile. Or Diego stared at a page for awhile. He was too aware of Klaus, sitting six inches from Diego’s bare feet. That was too close. Or it should have been.

“Luther is such a pr-pr-pr,” Diego said, and his stammer slammed the brakes on his mouth. Diego cursed inside and tried to keep the tears - he didn’t cry, he never cried- from coming up. “Pr-pr-pr-pri-… what? Wh-what are you d-d-d-doing?”

Klaus was just looking at Diego expectantly over his comic book.

“Waiting for you to finish,” Klaus said, like it was the simplest thing in the world.

“O-Oh,” Diego said, feeling strange. “Um… y-you can stay.”

“You know, I kinda _thought_ I could.”

The rest of the afternoon passed in silence. But not empty silence, for once.


	2. The Not-So-Good Times

It had taken Klaus less than a week of being back on his feet before he got fed up with the lack of fishnets, rhinestones, zippers, buckles, matching scarves, feather boas, paisley-patterned top hats, cravats, wingtips, and colors other than black in Diego’s wardrobe, and sent Diego to go pick up his things from the place where he’d been crashing.

 _Just head over, tell them I sent you. Ask for Blade Dawg,_ Klaus had said, plucking at Diego’s oversized gym shorts and making a little expression of distaste.

 _You were living with someone named_ **_Blade Dog_ ** _,_ Diego said flatly.

 _No no, Blade_ ** _Dawg_** _,_ Klaus insisted. _With a ‘W’._

_What the fuck difference does that make?_

Klaus hadn’t deigned to respond, just given Diego an address and asked him, very politely, not to kill anyone when he got there, which Diego found a _little_ insulting.

Though, looking at the place, Diego had to admit Klaus knew what he was about.

The address belonged to a sprawling, dilapidated house on a street of empty warehouses and grassy vacant lots. It had been a nice house, once; Diego figured its property values had tanked right around the time it got shot up during the Revolutionary War. Everything, from the peeling paint to the boarded windows to the shirtless, pot-bellied track-mark enthusiast passed out in a rotting armchair on the porch, screamed _crack house_ to Diego. He was aware that his hands were itching for a throwing knife and a can of kerosene.

Wiping his hand on his pants leg, Diego shut Eleanor’s door behind him, reflecting that she’d probably be in seventeen different chop shops by the time he reached the front door.

It felt weird, walking up the weed-choked path to the front door. Place like this, he usually came at night. He absently noted several entry points, including an open attic window that practically had a sign over it reading _KNIFE-WIELDING NOCTURNAL VIGILANTES, INQUIRE WITHIN._

At the very least, Diego felt like he should jump in through a window and combat roll to his feet. You know, manners.

The pudgy junkie snorted awake to the sound of Diego creaking up the stairs and peered at him in the blinding early-morning light, pain and bewilderment in his bloodshot eyes.

“Whorrreyou?” the man half-slurred and half-whined.

“Diego,” he said. “Klaus sent me. I’m, uh,” Christ, Diego, just _say it_ , you’ve done more humiliating things for family, “...looking for, ah… Blade Dog.”

“Who?” the junkie replied, scratching the white hairs on his belly.

Diego sighed through his nose. Really, _really_ itching for a knife right about now. “Blade _Dawg?_ ”

“Oh!” the junkie replied, face clearing of suspicion. “Yeah man, of course. Oi, Blade Dawg!”

Diego tensed. He wasn’t visibly armed, which meant he had eight or nine knives on him, because Klaus had told him to dress casual. The junkie opened the door, and Diego expected someone eight or nine feet tall and covered in prison tats, at the bare minimum.

He was not expecting a bichon frise with a blue mohawk and a spiked collar, one that immediately fell in love with his boots.

“Is this a prank show? Am I on camera?” Diego demanded, looking at the tubby fuck who was now grinning at him. “Get the hell _off_ me, dog.”

Diego shoved the yelping Blade Dawg away with the minimum force required; he nobly resisted the urge to punt the… _thing_ across the street. An episode at a gunrunner’s house--that had turned out to be empty of people but _not_ of angry German Shepherds--had soured him on the whole species.

Plus, who the fuck liked little dogs? With their stupid shaggy hair and their drama and their constant yapping.

Diego’s brain made a couple of connections that he wasn’t really prepared to deal with right then, so he ignored them.

“Hey man, I’m Terry,” the junkie--Terry, apparently--said, holding out a hand.

“Yeah, pretty sure I didn’t ask,” Diego said, ignoring Terry’s outstretched hand and trying to shove the dog aside with his foot, as it gave him a look of love most cruelly betrayed. “I’m here for Klaus’ stuff. Think you can point me to it before I use Fido for a football?”

“Jesus, sure,” Terry said, his voice as whiny as the dog’s now that it seemed unlikely that Diego was going to take him fly-fishing or name a child after him. “Right this way. Where is Klaus, anyway?”

“Staying with me,” Diego said, following Terry into the house. The floors were covered in old stained carpet, but all the walls were decked with posters and hand-painted murals; a bit artsy for a crackhouse.

Terry snorted. “Never thought Klaus liked ‘em butch.”

This placed Diego in the terrible position of wanting to justify his attractiveness to Klaus, which would just invite more _questions._ As if the piss-reek and (Diego presumed) asbestos weren’t giving him _enough_ of a headache.

“He’s my _brother._ ”

“Dude, that just makes it worse,” Terry said sadly.

Come to think of it, there were plenty of things Diego could do to Terry that wouldn’t violate his promise to abstain from cold-blooded murder. So many things. He had to remind himself that Klaus would give him such a _look_ if Terry suddenly found himself short an ear.

“You a Van Gogh fan, Terry?” Diego asked, apropos of nothing.

“...What?”

“Never mind.”

He could hear other occupants in the house. Someone in the kitchen was cooking bacon; someone in another room was playing The Ramones on a guitar, with more enthusiasm than talent. “What is this place, anyway?”

“You were expecting a crack house, right?” Terry asked.

Diego gave him a look. Terry, although friendly, clearly hadn’t used a spoon for its intended purpose in at least a decade.

“Well, _yeah_ ,” Terry replied, scratching his formicified arms. “But we like to think of it as a crack _home._ ”

 _Come on, just gimme something. A pinky toe, the tip of his nose,_ **_something_** _. Klaus won’t mind, right?_

They reached the end of a hallway, and Terry knocked on a closed door. It had a number four on it, Diego noticed without surprise.

“Hey! Jimmy! You decent?”

“The fuck do you want?”

“Some, uh, guy is here for Klaus’ stuff.”

“Oh, thank Christ,” the door slammed open, revealing a skinny blond guy with too much eyeliner.

He wasn’t bad-looking, Diego decided. The drugs hadn’t quite fucked him up yet, just left him disheveled and cheekboned. Glamorous, if one was high and the lights weren’t too bright. Big blue eyes that had probably looked sweet once. Diego, from long experience, gave him a year before he ended up in a landfill, or floating facedown by the wharf.

“Get his shit,” Blond Jimmy said, jerking his head towards one side of the room. Just one bed, of course.  Left to his own devices, Klaus gravitated towards pretty, always holding, and mean. Terry the landlord was annoying, but the sudden urge to kill Jimmy was stronger, and a lot more personal.

“Klaus got roughed up a few days ago,” Diego said, stepping into the room. He was exactly six feet away from Jimmy. Too close for a good throw, but--there was a knife hidden in the seam of his trousers, go for it, two steps, hit Jimmy in the throat, maybe drench the landlord and that stupid dog in the spray for good measure. Out through the window. Diego rehearsed it in his mind. “Know anything about it?”

“Haven’t seen him in a week,” Jimmy said, sitting down in a ratty blue armchair and lighting up a clove cigarette. “We broke up. Got any more personal questions, or are you gonna fuck off and leave me alone?”

Diego took a step closer. Jimmy’s head shot up, suddenly wary. Yeah, the kid knew a threat when he saw one. Good. “Know who he was hanging out with, maybe? Got any names?”

“No,” Jimmy said flatly. “He gets around. You should know that, if you’re gonna get wrapped up in his bullshit.”

A tendon popped somewhere in Diego’s neck as Jimmy held his gaze. He had to admit--shithead had some balls. His eyes flicked to Jimmy’s hands. Smooth knuckles. And his face was clean too--Diego had noticed blood under Klaus’ nails the first day. Diego squashed a faint flash of disappointment.

“I could go get you some bags, or something,” Terry said into the oppressive silence.

“Yeah,” Diego said. “Do that.”

Terry hustled out.

“Anything you leave here is going in the dumpster,” Jimmy said, grabbing a book off the floor and burying himself in it. _Nostromo_ , by Joseph Conrad. Apparently you got a better class of junkie, this part of town.

“Thanks,” Diego spat, gathering up a few armfuls of Klaus’ wardrobe and dumping them on the bed.

“You don’t look like his type. You must be family,” Jimmy Deathwish said, looking at Diego over his book.

“Oh yeah?” Diego said, picking managing to find at least one pair of shoes among all the odd ones on the floor.

“Otherwise, why did you come all this way, just to help that freak?”

Before Diego was quite aware of the chain of events, he was across the room, the armchair was over backwards, and he had Jimmy slammed up against the wall hard enough to send plaster dust from the ceiling drifting down like snow, the knife from his hidden pocket poised just under Jimmy’s razor-stubbled chin.

“Oh yeah?” Diego snarled. “And why’d you get up this morning, just to get murdered?”

“Hey!” Terry said, picking the worst moment to come back in the room. The stupid dog started barking. Diego could see Terry out of the corner of his eye, holding a handful of greasy paper grocery bags, looking terrified. Jimmy, Diego’s fist in his diaphragm, was turning purple and scrabbling at Diego with his skinny junkie hands.

“Let him go!” Terry said. Diego noticed, belatedly, that Terry had a big rusty kitchen knife in his shaking hands.

 _Escalate._ **_Do it._ **

The urge to shove the knife home (do it, back up two paces, the knife from his shoulder holster would hit Terry one beat later) was almost overwhelming. He settled for letting Jimmy fall into a wheezing heap on the floor.

He didn’t get up again as a shaking Terry helped shove Klaus’ shit in a couple of the bags. Diego left without saying another word.

 

<><><>

 

Something had happened, and none of them were quite sure what.

Dad was on the warpath, flinging open doors at random hours and scowling like a thundercloud down the dinner table, and not just at Five’s empty seat this time. Pogo seemed on edge, offering words about fraternal bonds and unit cohesion that (Diego was starting to notice this was true of _most_ of what Pogo said) added up to nothing. All of them were on edge, even Klaus, which was hugely distracting because Nervous Klaus somehow talked even more than Normal Klaus, and he was _always around._

So when all six of them--even Vanya--were shepherded into the familiar third floor classroom, their eyes went to the chalkboard to see what the title of the day’s lessons were.

 **HUMAN SEXUALITY** , the chalkboard read, even the handwriting somehow judgmental, **THE PERFIDIOUS ROOT OF SIN AND MEDIOCRITY**

“Oh god,” Ben whispered. “We’re… we’re getting the sex talk. Can’t we go get shot at some more instead?”

“I knew this day would come,” Vanya said gloomily, resting her chin on her desk.

“If Pogo walks in here with a condom and a banana, I am leaving,” Klaus announced.

“Why’d you have to mention bananas?” Ben moaned, smacking himself on the side of the head to get the image out.

“I mean it,” Klaus warned. “I will throw myself out the window if necessary.”

 _Pogo talking about boners_ , Diego thought to himself with horror. **_Pogo_** _talking about_ ** _boners._** “Room on that windowsill for one more?” Diego asked.

Klaus shot him a grin. “Of course!” he said grandly. “There’s room on the windowsill for _everyone_. Think of the headlines. Mass suicide of the Umbrella Academy, hooray!”

That got some half-hearted cheers, though Diego suppressed an odd flash of annoyance at including the others, before he noticed--a few seconds ahead of the rest of them--who _hadn’t_ spoken yet.

Diego turned in his chair to see Luther, bright red, trying to slide his ridiculous giraffe body lower into his chair. Allison, a complementary shade of mauve, shot all of them a venomous glare.

“O _ho_ ,” Klaus said. “Now I get it.”

“Ohmigawd,” Vanya said quietly.

“No wonder the old man is so furious,” Ben said.

“Isn’t it romantic, music in the niiiiiiight!” Klaus sang, using a handful of pencils as a microphone.

Luther glared. “Shut up, Klaus!”

“ _Y_ _ou_ shut up, asshole!” Diego snarled, attempting to jump to his feet too quickly, cracking his knees against the desk and giving himself the biggest double hit to the funny bone in history.

“Stand down, Diego,” Klaus said easily. “Don’t bust his balls on my account. After all…” Klaus widened his eyes in Allison’s direction. “...Someone might need them.”

“I heard a rumor _you shut your stupid mouth!”_ Allison burst out, her voice rippling through the air like it was underwater.

Because she hadn’t specified who, everyone in the room clamped their mouths shut for a breathless, involuntary instant. But because she also hadn’t specified a duration, they were free a moment later.

“Boooooo!”

“C’mon, no powers!”

“ _Really_ , darling?”

Diego and Vanya joined forces to throw wadded up note paper at her and Allison subsided, shamefaced.

But it turned out to be even worse than they’d thought--rather than Pogo walking into the room with a handful of pamphlets and visual aids, it was Sir Reginald Hargreeves himself, icily perfect in a blue velvet waistcoat, monocle flashing like the eye of some sinister idol. He carried nothing but himself, his palpable disappointment, and (Diego gauged, checking the lines around his mouth and the color of his knuckles) the second-to-largest stick up his ass.

“Students!” he barked, and all of them sat up ramrod-straight. “It had been brought to my attention--” and here he glowered at Luther and Allison, his expression somewhere between a thunderstorm and Old Testament Yahweh “--that I have been _remiss_ in your education. I had hoped that the grandeur of what we aim to accomplish, the mightiness of the events in which I have groomed you to be players and--eventually--masters, might put you above the distractions of the flesh. I had hoped, students, as I have hoped so often in the past--in vain.

“We shall begin forthwith. Notes are required. There will be no test; or rather, _life_ will be your test--for will you succumb to the base and unworthy urges of the flesh, or will you rise above and strive for true intellect, true enlightenment, true excellence?” Reginald gazed into the middle distance, distracted by the infinite vistas of the future, or possibly by hemorrhoids, Diego could never figure out which. “I _presume_ that you will not disappoint me. We now begin with a discussion of puberty, the process by which your vile animal nature attempts to usurp your higher consciousness through the means of chemical imbalance and the false promise of futile, ephemeral pleasures.”

 _Oh god._ **_Dad_ ** _talking about boners._ Did that mean Dad _got_ boners? Was sex even _invented_ back then?

If Diego’s powers had let him, he would have gladly reached inside his own brain to pinch off his carotid artery and send himself out of the classroom and the world in a torrent of blood from his ears. Since he couldn’t, he settled for jabbing himself in the thigh with a pencil and thinking about parabolic arcs and that funny little twitch people got when they died.

The lecture lasted somewhere between an hour and a million billion years. Most of it passed in a fog of horror, as Reginald discussed erections, a lady’s cycles, and the indisputable scientific fact that the production of menses and seminal fluid _drew vital humors from the brain and the moral centers of the body, leading to physical and spiritual degeneracy._ There was a great deal of talk about Onanism (a sin that Diego had committed like, six times in the past twenty-four hours, and holy crap was _that_ why they only got Corn Flakes for breakfast) dire foreboding about _unnamed vices_ , and twenty minutes spent extolling “the paradigm of True Manliness,” whatever the fuck _that_ meant.

Diego noticed that a lot of it seemed to be directed straight at Klaus, who grew progressively more stone-faced and grim as the lecture continued. It made Diego’s brain feel hot and full of spiders, watching Klaus shut down like that, and he stabbed himself again, harder.

The lecture felt like it would never end, but finally Reginald announced that he would not be taking questions, and turned on his heel and goose-stepped out of the room, bellowing for Mom to bring him a snifter of cognac and the latest _Lancet._

In his wake, all six kids sat in a stupor, staring into nothingness.

“How much do I have to drink in order to forget Dad talking about wet dreams?” Ben asked weakly.

“All of it, dear Ben, all of it _in the world_.” Klaus said.

“I don’t _feel_ like I have a ‘tempestuous fountain of Original Sin,’” Allison said, glancing down at her lap as thought one might have grown in when she wasn’t looking.

“That makes two of us,” Vanya said, making a little face.

“Does that mean I _don’t_ have a ‘compass arrow pointing unerringly towards ignominy and degradation?’” Klaus asked, making pointy fingers toward his crotch.

“I’ve got your compass arrow, right here,” Diego sniggered.

“One of those little ones, like the Boy Scouts use,” Ben said, giggling.

Diego growled and threw a pen at him. Ben didn’t even bother to dodge, since it was pointless. It did break the mood though, and there was a smattering of relieved laughter from everyone. Even Vanya chuckled a little, in that quiet way she had that implied she might be punished for making noise--everyone except Luther, whose sense of humor had been replaced with a steroid pump at birth.

But for the rest of the day, certain thoughts kept gnawing at Diego, through the afternoon and then through dinner. Thankfully, they had no mission that day, and Dad’s comprehensive disgust for their _sinful and mediocre_ teenage flesh meant he dismissed them after the meal with a scarcely disguised shudder.

Free time wasn’t _quite_ worth the cost of the sex lecture, but it came close.

Diego went to his room and Klaus followed him, which was normal. Klaus’ room was a lot cleaner, but he liked to burn a fruity incense that made Diego sneeze.

They were on Diego’s bed, Diego propped up on pillows and practicing his knife throwing, Klaus reading with his head on a pillow across Diego’s knees. Klaus tended to be very tactile, and Diego tolerated it, because Klaus was ever-so-slightly quieter when he was happy. He even tousled Klaus’ hair every few minutes, because it resulted in a contented noise and a few blissful moments of silence.

It didn’t work this time, though.

“So what’s up your butt?” Klaus asked with no preamble, turning to the side and looking at Diego.

“Nothing,” Diego said, throwing a knife into the neck of the mannequin hanging from a chain in the corner. He’d named it Luther Junior.

“Dieeeeeeggooooooo.”

“Kuhhhhhhllllaaaaaaaus,” Diego sing-songed back. He ignored Klaus’ puppy dog eyes. Go to hell, Klaus.

“Diego. You’re gonna tell me. You’re gonna bitch and moan and throw knives and threaten me with violent bodily harm, but I’m not gonna let up and eventually you’re gonna tell me. Come on. Out with it. C’mon c’mon c’mon. Let’s save ourselves some time.”

“You’re not gonna shut up until I tell you?” Diego asked hopelessly, knowing the answer.

“Not unless you break my jaw again,” Klaus said, blinking prettily.

Ugh. _Ugh._

“Well. Um, Allison and Luther.”

“Yeah.” Klaus said. “Honestly, I’m surprised it took them this long. They’ve been making cow eyes at each other since we were six.”

“Well. Um. They obviously… what if…” Diego struggled to find words.

“Yes?”

“What if they…” Diego made a couple of evocative gestures, then lowered his hands in frustration.

“Would it bother you if they did?” Klaus asked.

“Not that, but like… did Luther pop his cherry? Before _me?”_ Diego demanded, outrage bleeding through.

Because if Mister Perfect and his consort wanted to do boring perfect sex to each other, then whatever, Diego figured. But not before he did, with…

...Who, exactly?

He tuned back into the conversation to find Klaus biting his fist, squeaking with repressed laughter.

“It’s not funny!” Diego snapped. He drew his legs out from under Klaus and shoved him off the bed, a standard maneuver. Klaus continued to squeak as he hit the floor, Diego scowling down at him.

“No, it is, it is _so funny_ ,” Klaus said.

“Shut up!”

Klaus managed to contain himself, then sat up and launched himself at Diego. They had a brief, furious fight over Klaus getting back on the bed, which ended with Diego glaring metaphorical daggers, throwing literal daggers, and Klaus’ bony ass cutting off circulation to his shins.

“If that’s what you’re worried about, let me tell you: I doubt it.” Klaus said. “For one thing, I think they held hands and maybe, _maybe_ progressed to Eskimo kisses.”

“Oh. Well. Good,” Diego said, feeling relieved.

“For two, I’m actually pretty sure Luther doesn’t have a cock,” Klaus said contemplatively. “I think he’s got a featureless plastic crotch with the Mattel logo on it.”

Diego had the weirdest urge to insist to Klaus that he, Diego, had a cock, even though he was pretty sure Klaus had assumed that much.

“So I think you’ve got at least a decade to pull ahead in that race,” Klaus said. “Set your mind at ease.”

Diego shook Klaus off his legs, and Klaus returned to his book. After a few minutes, Diego looked up from sharpening his favorite knife.

“Hey Klaus--what was Dad on about with all that ‘nameless vice’ stuff?”

Klaus’ expression went flat, and a little line appeared between his brows. “Oh. That.”

“He seemed to be… saying it straight to you.”

“He was,” Klaus said, voice tight. “You know he doesn’t think I’m… manly enough. And he’s just being a prick, most of those vices have perfectly good names. In Latin, even.”

“Well, I still like you, even though you’re girly and talk too much and you make my comforter smell like Mom’s perfume,” Diego said. He was surprised to discover it was true. Somewhere along the line saintly tolerance had turned into liking. He, Diego, liked Klaus, and why did that feel so weird?

“Thanks, Diego,” Klaus said, smiling again. Diego breathed out in relief. Klaus was _really_ annoying when he was sad. “I like you too, even though you’re… Diego.”

“Hey!”

“But yeah. Nameless vices…” Klaus stood up with a stretch, and wandered over to Diego’s wardrobe, pulling open the door. “Hey, come look at this.”

“Nothing fun in there, just knives and combat gear,” Diego said.

“Yes, yes, but… could you help me? I can’t seem to find what I’m looking for.”

“I _just_ got comfortable,” Diego complained.

“It’s up on a high shelf.”

“You’re taller than I am,” Diego said, thinking it was really rude of Klaus to remind him of that fact.

“Diego, just _come here."_

Diego sighed and did so. Klaus opened the door a little wider, and once he was sure Diego could see, jerked his head towards the ceiling directly above the door--

Towards the camera.

Diego had his mouth open to ask Klaus what the hell he was playing at, but before he could get a word out, Klaus caught his arm and frantically gestured him to silence, with a brief press of his hand over Diego's mouth.

In the enclosed semi-darkness of the closet, their breathing loud in the silence, Diego suddenly found himself… very aware of Klaus’ nearness. Not their usual, casual closeness, the way Klaus felt entitled to use Diego like a pillow, but something tense and heightened--a feeling like adrenaline in the air that sent Diego's heartbeat kicking up a notch, a feeling that he associated more with armed assailants than with Klaus.

“ _Nameless vices_ ,” Klaus whispered, too low for the audio pickup. He breathed in, steeling himself for something. “I think he meant a lot of things, but mostly this.”

Before Diego could think, or react, Klaus tilted his head and… pressed his lips against Diego’s. It only lasted a moment, a brief, clumsy bump of Klaus’ mouth against his (that felt nothing more than _weird_ ) but Diego froze, unmoving beneath the feel of Klaus’ hands on his shoulders, Klaus’ breath coasting against his lips.

“Um,” he said awkwardly when Klaus drew back.

Whatever Klaus saw on his face made his eyes widen with sudden panic. “I was just--!”

“Shut up, shut up!” Diego said, catching Klaus before he could bolt. His brain was frantically trying to make sense of what just happened, which was hard with Klaus staring at him like that, wide-eyed and _scared._ “That… that was what Dad meant? That you want to--?”

“Yeah,” Klaus breathed.

“You want to… with me?” Diego asked, chest tight.

“Yeah, kind of,” Klaus said, looking aside before returning his eyes to Diego’s. “Yes. I do. I do a lot.”

The naked wanting in Klaus’ eyes was… alarming. That kind of vulnerability didn’t sit well with Diego, made him want to step up and fight whoever had made Klaus look like that, except that this time it was him. Klaus was on tenterhooks because of _him,_ desperate for something that _Diego_ could give him, and suddenly the oddness of the kiss--that had been a _kiss,_ his first kiss, _Klaus had_ **_kissed him_ **\--paled beside the urge to do it again, to make the tight-pale-scared look on Klaus’ face go away and replace it with--

“Dad would be really angry if he found out,” Diego said slowly. His hand had found Klaus’ hip at some point, and he flexed his fingers along the waistband of Klaus’ pants.

“Yeah,” Klaus said, pulling away with a tiny flinch. “You’re right, he would be.”

“No, do it again,” Diego demanded. “Slower, this time.”

Klaus blinked at him. “What, really?”

“No, sarcastically,” Diego said, rolling his eyes. “You wanna do this, or not?”

“Yes! Yes,” Klaus said, closing his eyes and leaning down. “Yes, please.”

His mouth hovered over Diego’s for a moment, uncertain, until Diego got impatient and pulled him down the rest of the way. It startled a little squeak out of Klaus, a little hitch of breath that Diego could feel where their mouths met, and--and this really was a lot better if you didn’t keep your jaw clenched.

It should have been weird, or off-putting, the feel of Klaus’ mouth moving against his, but Klaus made _noises_ as Diego kissed him, desperate little groans low in his throat, and instead Diego found himself pushing in harder, backing Klaus flat against the wall of the closet and grabbing him by his stupid Umbrella Academy tie to pull him down to a more convenient height.

Diego’s brain felt fiery red, like it did during a fight, when time slowed down and all sensations were heightened and he was acutely aware of every move, every infinitesimal twitch of another body; he’d never thought that kissing could be like fighting, and Klaus was _way better_ at this than he was at fighting. He could _feel_ Klaus--feel the muscles in his waist tighten when Diego’s hand rubbed over his thin school shirt, feel his heart beating rabbit-fast in his chest, feel their thighs brush when he leaned in closer. Diego bit back a groan, unwilling to move back, but afraid to get any closer, trying not to rub his dick on Klaus even though he was _harder than he had ever been in his life._

“Oh my god, _damn,_ I’ve wanted to do this--” Klaus gasped out when Diego gave his mouth a two-second rest.

“With me?” Diego demanded. Not with Allison, or Ben, or anyone else in the world, not with fucking _Luther,_ just with him--

“Who else?” Klaus said, like it was that simple. He gave a breathless laugh and leaned in eagerly for another kiss, startling Diego with the tip of his tongue tentatively pressing into his open mouth--which also should have been weird and gross but instead Diego just found that _he_ was the one making noises this time, chasing Klaus’ tongue and pressing his whole body against him, not even caring anymore if Klaus noticed his hard-on, desperate just to get closer, to get _more--_

Neither of them heard the door opening, but they both heard it when Ben said, “Hey Diego, do you know where Klaus is _oh Jesus Christ I’m sorry!_ ”

Diego and Klaus broke apart, Diego nearly tripping over the bottom lip of his wardrobe and falling inside it. Which would have been a really bad idea, the thing was so full of knives it was basically an iron maiden.

Diego was glad, in that moment, that he was too dark-skinned to turn the same purplish-puce that Klaus turned, or the pasty beige that Ben was around the hand clamped to his mouth.

 _Oh, hello Ben, Klaus and I were just sparring,_ Diego’s brain supplied. _You know. Um, one of those Brazilian things. Close quarters. You know._ **_Very_ ** _close quarters._

Diego maybe would have tried it, except that Ben wasn’t stupid and he, Diego, was suddenly aware of how _awkward_ it was that he had a screamingly uncomfortable boner in his stupid short pants that could be seen from goddamn outer space. Klaus looked like he’d just fallen out of the back of a truck, mussed and dazed. He was also experiencing certain pants-related discomfort, the sight of which sent a hot flush of interest shooting through Diego, and he wanted to… to…

Well, he wasn’t sure what he wanted, but he would have liked ten more minutes of them alone in the closet to figure it out.

“Um,” Diego said intelligently.

Klaus gave a high-pitched giggle that was practically a whinny, but it was one of horror, not amusement.

A merciful God, Diego thought to himself, would _do something_ in situations like this. Maybe hit them all with a lightning bolt. Turn Diego into a pillar of salt. Turn _Ben_ into a pillar of salt, so they could go back to kissing.

_Yes yes, that one!_

“I’m, uh,” Ben said. He seemed to be wrestling with something. “...Sorry I interrupted.”

Klaus widened his eyes and mouthed _camera_ , exaggerating the three syllables. Ben gave a tiny nod.

“I was wondering if you’d help me with my essay,” Ben said, pitching his voice for the camera.

“Sure,” Klaus said. “I’ll bring Diego, since I bet, like, _all the money in the world_ that he hasn’t even started it yet.”

“Hey!” Diego said hotly, before Klaus grabbed his hand and squeezed it, just a little. Jesus, why did _that_ make him feel wobbly all of a sudden.

(And, of course, Klaus was absolutely right, but it was the principle of the thing.)

“Sounds good,” Ben said. “Thanks.”

They’d been taught hand signals-- _not_ sign language, genetic degenerates, societal decay, yes Dad--for stealth situations. The one Ben flashed, carefully out of sight of the camera, was the one for _be careful_ , but Diego was surprised to see a little grin on Ben’s face while he did it.

 

<><><>

 

It was after dark and the gym was closed when Diego, bags of clothes and Chinese take-out in hand, paused outside the door to his room when he heard raised voices.

…Or raised _voice,_ singular.

“We’ve been over this so many goddamned times before,” Klaus said, sounding like he was at the end of his rope. “What is it, you don’t _approve?”_

Klaus paused like he was listening, letting out an occasional scoff.

“Well it may have escaped your notice, but we’re adults. I was wrestling with this for _years_ before you became personally acquainted with the afterlife--”

Diego opened the door, quietly.

“See, see now, that’s cheap. First you’re worried about _me_ , now you’re worried about _him_. Is he going to break my heart, or am _I_ going to abuse his trust? That’s a specious argument, I sat through all the same rhetoric classes you did, man! You’re not going to put that one over on me.”

Klaus was red-faced and furious, standing near Diego’s workbench and naked except for a pair of leopard-print euro-briefs--apparently he was serious about his boycott of Diego’s wardrobe. Personally, Diego felt that for an argument, even an argument with thin air, a person should be wearing clothes.

“I’m sorry, I know this is hard, and I know you worry, but what the hell do you expect me to--” Klaus froze abruptly. Without turning, he said, in a very different voice “Oh, hello Diego.”

“Klaus,” Diego said. “You, uh, alright?”

“Fine,” Klaus snapped, glaring at an empty spot over Diego’s bed. “I’m _just fine._ Is that pork fried rice I smell?”

“You bet,” Diego said, setting the food down on his workbench. “Is there… someone else here?”

“No,” Klaus said, spitefully. “Nobody who matters.”

Diego knew better than to ask. It was the most basic rule of being a Hargreeves (one that mopey bitch Vanya could have used a refresher course on before she decided to indulge her literary aspirations): that you didn’t ask. Or if you had to ask, you didn’t press. You respected each other’s silence. Even Luther played by the rules.  

“Got your stuff,” Diego said. “Might wanna get dressed. Bit chilly in here.”

“No it isn’t, it’s sweltering,” Klaus said, but he grinned and caught the bag that Diego tossed him.

“I checked all of it, seems to be in good shape,” Diego said, casually. _Not saying everything_ was another rule, so Diego omitted the pills and mysterious wrinkly things in tiny ziplock baggies he’d thrown in the river on the way to the Chinese place. God knew what would have happened if he’d gotten Klaus’ wardrobe within five hundred yards of a drug-sniffing dog.

“Aha,” Klaus said after a frozen moment. “Thanks.”

Diego nodded. _That_ argument was coming--Diego knew it in his bones--but Klaus didn’t seem to want it just then.

Klaus busied himself with dressing, selecting several pieces that didn’t go together at all, assuming one wasn’t a refugee from a terrorist attack at a Tokyo fashion district. Diego busied himself with shrimp egg rolls and egg flower soup.

“All this fine food, must be costing you a fortune,” Klaus said, sitting down, looking a great deal more… _Klaus_ in a hand painted silk waistcoat with no shirt underneath it and jeans of such pristine, angelic whiteness Diego gave himself six seconds before he accidentally spilled sweet-and-sour on them. “You spoil me.”

“Naw,” Diego said. “Dude at Dragon Wok owes me a favor.”

Klaus stared. “You and your _favors._ What, did you save his daughter from a gang of thugs, or something? Was there a shootout, with _slow-motion doves?_ ”

Diego had, in fact, climbed into the vents above the deep-fryer to fish out the reeking corpse of what turned out to be a very fat, oily raccoon, for which Thuy had promised him once-a-week take-out unto eternity. Altogether, though, he liked Klaus’ version of the story better, so he settled for a shrug and two raised eyebrows.

“I met Jimmy,” Diego said, trying to keep his voice neutral.

“Ah,” Klaus said, voice colorless as glass. “And how is the dear man?”

“I didn’t kill him. Thought about it, though.”

“Yeah. Jimmy has that effect on people,” Klaus said. He gave his takeout box of egg foo yung a weird little grimace-smile.

“Klaus… why do you go for guys like that?”

“Because he could do pushups with his tongue, and he’s hung like a stallion,” Klaus declared, in that grand tone of voice that announced _I Am Camouflaging, Please Shut Up_ to anybody who knew him.

“You’re trying to gay panic _me_?” Diego asked. “You must be losing your touch.”

Klaus made a face. “Yeah, didn’t think that one through.”

“Would have worked on Luther.”

“Pfft. All I had to do to scare Luther out of a room was lift my shirt and waggle an eyebrow,” Klaus said fondly.

“I’ll try that, he ever gets back from the moon.”

They ate in silence. Diego didn’t press him.

“It…” Klaus said, swallowing. “He’s not so bad, really. It was my fault--”

“--That is _such_ a crock of shit--”

“--I can’t keep it together. You know that. You know that better than anyone,” Klaus said, setting down his food and squeezing his eyes shut. “I try to keep it… in balance. You know, just enough that I can keep them all quiet, not enough that I like, kill myself. It was easier, when I was younger.”

“You’re _twenty-seven,_ ” Diego said hopelessly.

“Am I?” Klaus said, sounding genuinely curious. “Sometimes I feel a million. And guys like Jimmy… make me feel safe. For awhile. Can we please be done with this conversation now?”

 _And why,_ Diego’s brain supplied in that smug insinuating way it had when it was tallying his sins and failures, _would Klaus associate_ **_that_ ** _with safety? Why go for guys like Jimmy, instead of the person who never turns on him, but can’t ever seem to stick around?_

That wasn’t fair. Klaus left _him_ , at least half the time.

“Yeah,” Diego said. “We’re done. I’m sorry, I’m not being good company.”

“You never have been,” Klaus said with a fond smile, reaching over the distance between them and putting his hand on Diego’s knee. “Why would you start now?”

Diego shook his head and stood, cracking his back. “I’m gonna go work off some of this… whatever the fuck this is. I’ll be back in a bit.”

“You’re missing… being out there, aren’t you?” Klaus asked, in a small, hopeless voice. Being a good Hargreeves, because he said _being out there_ and not _killing people._ Killing them if they deserve it; if _you_ decide they deserve it.

“Yeah,” Diego said, rolling his shoulders. “But you’re worth it.”

“You’re worth the ghosts,” Klaus said quietly as Diego headed towards the door.

Diego didn’t answer, didn’t have an answer that Klaus would want to hear, because he knew what life had been screaming in his ear since he was ten years old: that he wasn’t worth _shit_. There was one thing he was good at, one thing he was for, and he wasn’t doing it now.

It was always a balancing act; which of them would break first? Which monkey on which back screamed the loudest, and screamed them both apart?

“I’m not going anywhere,” Diego said. “Just gonna work on one of the punching bags, maybe some weights. I’ll be back soon.”

Klaus made an _O.K._ with his hand, and waved him out the door. He seemed very interested in his fried rice.

Tai chi wasn’t going to do it tonight, Diego knew. He needed something that would hurt.

He picked the hardest punching bag and didn’t bother with the gloves, stripping off his shirt and going fucking apeshit on the thing, savoring the sting, then the burn, then the agony in his hands and arms. It wasn’t as good as working--he wasn’t saving lives or ending them--but it was better than nothing. His breath buzz-sawed, his sweat dripped, and his arms hurt like he’d been punching a brick wall. Hairline fractures filled in with calcium, made you stronger. It was Diego’s favorite little miracle.

Leaning on the bag, panting like a dog, he eventually realized Klaus was watching him, sitting cross-legged on the edge of the mat. His eyes were clear, which Diego knew was both a good sign and a bad one.

“That bad, huh?” Klaus asked.

“What?” Diego said. “I creamed that fucker. Didn’t you hear him beg for mercy?”

Diego turned back to the bag and gave it a few more hits. His wrists and arms were convinced he was trying to get information out of them, and they promised to tell him whatever he wanted to know.

“I’ll understand, you know,” Klaus said, coming up behind him quietly in the empty gym, wrapping his arms around Diego, resting his chin on his shoulder, heedless of the sweat. Diego shuddered, leaned into it. “I usually do. You’ve got your life to live, man.”

“How many ghosts are here right now, Klaus?”

Klaus stiffened. “You really don’t want to know,” he whispered softly, tightening his grip.

His hand drifted lower, across the sweaty planes of Diego’s stomach, down to the waistband of his jeans as he started to work open his fly one-handed. Sex never seemed to fix anything, or distract them for more than an hour or two, but Diego didn’t stop him, just leaned his weight back against Klaus, bit back a soft sigh as Klaus’ hand slid inside his boxers and wrapped around his dick.

“I can deal with it for a while longer,” Klaus whispered, as Diego turned and took his face in his hands.

 

<><><>

 

Diego’s world had narrowed in the last few weeks. Narrowed down to the time he could spend with Klaus, whatever moments they could steal away from the cameras and the others.

There was a stretch of hallway behind the kitchens that wasn’t bugged, and a trip to the backyard was usually good for a couple of minutes. The central courtyard had a knot of trees that sheltered them from any windows, but it wouldn’t do to be caught lurking there. They’d managed fifteen aching, desperate, very nearly rabid minutes during a thunderstorm between the power going out and Mom getting the generator up, in a sweaty heap of tangled limbs on Diego’s bed.

It wasn’t _nearly enough._

The mission that night was dull as dishwater. Someone was trying to rob an art museum, yawn, and Diego had to argue with Dad to even be allowed to go, since the entire world was still mad about Diego accidentally breaking the Rosetta Stone that time Dad seconded them to the British Museum. Diego didn’t get what the big deal was, the shitty old rock was already broken. Diego had to promise that no knives would end up in any inconvenient masterpieces, and Ben was asked to please summon only his most housetrained, biddable black horror tentacles if mass dismemberment was required.

Seriously, why not just hire a Boy Scout troop to protect all the stupid paintings, then?

The others were bored too. Diego hit the lookout in the marble foyer with a smoke bomb right to the forehead, and Luther got in close and managed the other, picking him up and flinging him so far out the open window that he might as well have landed in Istanbul, for all he mattered anymore. They all winced at the distant _thump_ and the sudden wail of a car alarm.

“Man, what are we even doing here?” Luther complained, wiping the goon off his hands.

“Dad’s scraping the bottom of the barrel,” Ben said. “How many people are here? Klaus?”

Klaus’ eyes went distant. “Victoria says there’s four in the other room--yes, darling, I’ll be sure to look up your husband, I’m sure he’s being very nice to your cat--they’re going for the Monet. Didn’t we just thwart a Monet theft like, yesterday?”

“That was a Klein but yeah, I’m friggin’ bored,” Allison said. Diego couldn’t see her roll her eyes behind the domino mask--and why did they even wear masks, Diego had done an interview for Disney Adventure Magazine like two days ago--but he could sense it anyway.

“Four?” Luther complained.

“There’s another lookout, coming this way,” Klaus said, gesturing towards a door that lead to the restrooms and gift shop. “He’s armed. Yes, for--Victoria, _yes,_ for chrissakes, I’ll check on your stupid cat! Now could you be a love and go check the stairwells?”

“Who’s Victoria?” Diego asked.

“Elderly docent. Had a heart attack,” Klaus said. “It was also in _1932_ , so I’m not feeling optimistic about Sir Whiskers.”

“I’m sure he died a hero,” Ben said solemnly.

They dispersed to the walls, Allison hovering near the door. The door opened, and the second burglar didn’t see her slip up behind him to whisper in his ear, the air around them shivering pink. The burglar blinked, took off his black balaclava to reveal a boyish, podgy voice, and handed Allison his gun with a polite, befuddled smile.

“I told him to sit quietly on the stairs until the police come,” Allison said. The burglar gave them a friendly wave as he headed towards the doors.

“Nice one, Al,” Luther said.

“Don’t call me that,” Allison, Klaus, Ben and Diego said in perfect unison, then practiced their synchronized glower.

“You boys think you’re funny, don’t you?” Allison asked dangerously.

“Wait, hold up,” Klaus said, eyes fixed on empty air. “Victoria, um, says that there might be more past that emergency exit.”

“Go check it out,” Luther said, nodding.

“Diego, cover me,” Klaus said, jerking his head towards the fire door. Diego nodded and fell in behind him, slipping a few knives between the fingers of his left hand, for ease of access and because it made him feel like Wolverine.

Klaus opened the fire door slowly, onto a landing with the dimly lit stairwell towering above them. Diego couldn’t hear anything, but maybe the burglars were being sneaky.

“Thank Christ,” Klaus said, shutting the door heavily behind him. “Diego, door jam.”

Diego passed him a knife and Klaus shoved it into the tiny crack between the door and the frame.

“Was that a good idea? What if we need to retreat--” Diego’s prudent words were cut off by Klaus’ mouth, forceful and insistent in a way that made the not-as-tactically-aware part of Diego’s anatomy go _hellyesmoreofthatpleaseyesyesyes._

“I figure we’ve got ten minutes before the others come looking,” Klaus said, shaking hands frantically working at Diego’s belt buckle. “Fuck _off,_ Victoria, or pull up a chair.”

“Here?” Diego asked. “Now? With Victoria watching?”

“Here, now, _anywhere,_ they’re always fucking watching,” Klaus said. “I’m too goddamn horny to care anymore--”

It was good that Diego was strong enough to slow their descent, because Klaus basically tackled him to the floor, tongue insistent in his mouth, one hand still fumbling for Diego’s fly, the other clamped around the back of Diego’s neck, as if Diego had _any plans_ to leave right now. It was all he could do not to grab Klaus’ shirt and send the buttons flying, because how the hell would they explain _that?_

He ran his hands over Klaus’ familiar, whipcord chest, rucked up Klaus’ shirt to get at the hot, lean skin beneath. Klaus growled at Diego’s mouth kissing and biting at his throat, then broke away and shimmied down Diego’s body to settle between his spread knees, pressing his face . The furthest they’d gotten up to this point was Klaus’ actual hand on his actual cock, for seven or eight paralyzing seconds before the lights came back on during the thunderstorm. Klaus obviously had something more in mind this time--and Diego had no clue what he expected to try in the stairwell of a goddamn art museum, a burglary in progress on the other side of the door, but this was Klaus, so--in for a penny, in for a pound.

Diego was aware of the whimpering sounds he made as Klaus nosed down the seam of his stupid uniform short pants, his impossibly warm mouth closing over the bulge of his cock, mouthing at him through layers of fabric.

“I want to--” Klaus panted against his cock. “Can I--?”

“Crap--I mean, yes. Yeah. I just--budge up, I want to do it too.”

“What, at the same time?”

“Yeah? We’re kind of on a tight schedule here, Klaus.”

There was an awkward shuffle, bodies sliding into configurations they hadn’t exactly rehearsed before, hands fumbling with belts, with zippers. Diego found himself half on his side with his face mashed at an odd angle with Klaus’ crotch, all his weight on one shoulder pushing into the cold linoleum floor. And he’d be the first to admit he had no fucking clue what he was doing, but, again, _Klaus,_ and it wasn’t like he hadn’t _thought_ about this before.

And then Klaus’ hands were opening his fly, pulling at his dick; then it was _Klaus’ mouth_ closing around his dick, hot and wet and _holy-shit-goddamn-amazing,_ and Diego’s brain promptly shorted out in a rush of _ohmygodbestthingeverweshoulddothisALLTHETIME._ Distantly, he could remember that he’d been intending to do the same for Klaus, had been _wanting_ to do the same, but his world had narrowed to Klaus’ warm mouth, sucking on his dick like his life depended on it, and the low, muffled moans coming from Klaus’ throat. He settled for nuzzling Klaus’ hip and the outline of his cock, and hoped it felt good, hoped it felt half as good as--

Start to finish, it took about forty-five seconds, tops, and then Diego was collapsing onto the tiles, spent, clutching Klaus’ hips, face still pressed into Klaus’ crotch.

“Oh my god,” Diego said, panting. “You’re the best. You’re the fucking _best_.”

“You’re too kind--” Klaus pushed him off and struggled upright. He had, uh, apparently finished too, Diego noticed, even though they hadn’t even managed to get his fly unzipped. Diego decided to take that as a compliment.

He gestured vaguely at the spreading wetness on Klaus’ pants. “Dude, you need to--”

Which is, of course, exactly when the shots rang out.

Diego sprang to his feet, or tried to; his trousers around his ankles, combined with the lack of blood in his extremities, caused him to almost pitch forward down the stairs towards the basement. Klaus’ hand snatched the back of his blazer just in time.

“Shit!”

“Crapcrapcrap _crap--_ ” Klaus said, hastily trying to adjust buttons and belt buckles and failing, miserably; his lips were swollen, and Diego wanted to just stay in the stairwell and see if he could make them worse--

More gunfire; automatic, this time.

“Goddamnit--”

“There were only four of them, how could they get the drop on us?” Diego said, pulling his knife out from between the doorjam with a crunch; goddamn tungsten knives, sharp as hell but no torsion at all.

“Actually,” Klaus said faintly, head cocked. Exactly none of his buttons were in the right place. “There were nine. Apparently some of them were waiting outside.”

Diego said several words that would have resulted in a smack upside the head from Pogo and no-desserts-for-a-month from Mom.

The vaulted ceilings echoed with the eerie, string-quartet screech of the Whatever-the-Fuck that lived inside Ben. Faintly, under it, Diego could hear Ben’s screaming.

They took off at a run; the lobby was empty, except for the amiable goon Allison had brainwashed, giving them a friendly wave as they rushed past. Diego hit the bronze double doors with his shoulder as soon as Klaus gave the all-clear.

The others were massed in a clump towards the center of the room, in the middle of a wide circle of gore. There were bits everywhere. Some were recognizable as parts that had once been attached to a person; most of it was mulch, like nine people had been fed through a wood chipper. Diego slipped in a puddle of blood and… _things_ and managed to catch himself on a conveniently placed bronze.

Ben sat on the floor, face in his hands, Carrie on prom night; his narrow chest shook with his sobs. Allison, on her knees next to him, had her arms around his shoulders, rocking him back and forth.

“Jesus,” Diego said, and he heard Klaus retch loudly behind him.

“And just where the _fuck_ were you two?!” Luther demanded, looking white under the spattered blood. For once, Diego couldn’t even be angry with him.

“We were checking the stairwell, asshole, where the fuck were _you_?” Diego snarled.

Well so much for that.

“We got ambushed…” Luther said, and he trailed off, eyes narrowing at Diego. Specifically, at Diego’s collar, which was torn. He glanced at Klaus, who instantly turned fuchsia; no poker face on that one. Luther’s eyes took in Klaus’ blazer, which was stained, and Diego’s fly, which was unbuttoned. Even someone with a Mattel logo instead of a dick, it turned out, could figure out the _completely obvious._

“Um.” Luther said, going red.

“Oh my god,” Allison said faintly. Ben looked up, face streaked with blood and tears.

“Oh for Christ’s sake, you two, is that what you call _being careful?_ ” Ben said, then he laughed, borderline hysterical, hiccoughs that turned back into sobs. His power hurt him--always did--and it got worse every time.

“Oh god, Ben, I’m sorry,” Klaus said, miserable, sitting himself down on Ben’s other side and throwing an arm around him.

“I don’t know that it would have made a difference,” said Luther, compulsively fair. “They came out of nowhere.”

Diego hated it when he was fair.

“I’m, um, sorry too,” Diego whispered, staring intently at his feet.

Allison blinked, her cheek bloody where she’d been resting it on Ben’s head. “You apologized? Maybe we should be thankful you got la-”

“Dad!” Klaus hissed, eyes going wide, staring towards the doors to the lobby. Diego frantically straightened his clothes as Allison and Klaus helped Ben to his feet. Allison re-buttoned Klaus’ shirt at double speed; the blood would cover the rest.

The bronze doors opened again. All of them stiffened abruptly.

Sir Reginald looked not one bit less hard than the statues all around him as he strode into the room, feet firmly placed on marble, blood, and viscera with equal confidence.

“Hm,” Reginald said, and Diego felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. “Not up to your usual standards, was it?”

“No sir,” Luther said, flushing.

“Inelegant,” Reginald said, making a slight gesture towards the shredded bodies all around them. Dismissing death and dismemberment on the basis of its _lack of elegance._ “Insupportable. All I can say, Number Six, is that at least you managed to keep the blood from the paintings. The bronzes, I feel, can be cleaned.”

Diego had the strongest urge to throw a knife into the nearest Renoir. Or into his father’s back.

“Thank you, sir,” Ben said, almost inaudibly.

“Still…” Reginald’s face twisted into an expression of distaste. “Clumsy. Sloppy. I not only expect better, students, I demand it. Did something unusual happen, to explain this mess?”

Silence.

“That was _not,”_ Sir Reginald snapped, monocle flashing, “a rhetorical question.”

Luther looked… torn. Diego knew a lot of things, intellectually, that didn’t seem to matter in the heat of the moment. He knew that Luther, alone of all of them, felt torn. He was the only one who still wanted to love the old man, and be loved in turn. He was the quisling, the weak link. He was the one they couldn’t completely trust.

“Well-” Luther began, flushing red.

The old bastard had freaked out when he caught Allison and Luther snuggling; god only knew what his reaction would be to hearing that a mission got fucked up because two of his sons were _soixant-neuf’d_ in a stairwell. Diego’s life flashed before his eyes, and surprise surprise, it was a pretty shitty life.

“Nothing happened, sir,” Ben spoke up suddenly, staring directly at Luther. “They surprised us.” He tried to wipe blood from his face with a sleeve equally soaked. Pointless. But his voice was surprisingly strong, and there was no trace of his tears in it. The only thing that Reginald despised more than children was weakness.

“Is that so, Number One?”

Luther, after a long moment, nodded. “Yes, sir. That’s true.”

Diego could see Luther’s heart break, the tiniest bit, the way it always did when he had to choose between his siblings and Dad. Diego didn’t care, but he did see it; too stupid to read the writing on the wall, too loyal to know when to say die, too deluded to know that loyalty would never be reciprocated, that was Luther, alright. Diego never knew which he hated more, the ways that Luther was strong or the ways he was weak.

Behind Reginald’s back, Diego mouthed _thank you_ to Ben. When Reginald turned on his heel to march back towards the entrance, Ben flashed the _be careful_ sign, with a little twist at the end that meant _you freaking idiot._

 

<><><>

  


It ended the way it always did.

Diego arrived back at the gym, dinner in hand, sidestepped Nigel’s questions about the weird fella sleeping in Diego’s room ( _not that I’m old-fashioned, or anything, but some things just aren’t right--_ ), and was barely three steps through the door when Klaus’ head snapped up and he said, voice completely flat:

“You just killed two people.”

Diego’s mind went blank. He hadn’t planned on it, but an assault had basically _landed in his lap_ , four guys beating up a fifth, much younger, and what was he supposed to do, not help? It was his job, his calling, it was _what he was good for._

“Only one,” Diego said lamely. The biggest one, the one with the brass knuckles, and Diego couldn’t say he regretted it, not after seeing the ugly bruises all over the kid’s body, when it was over and Diego had helped him up, driven him to the ER.

“Two,” Klaus said, head cocked in that way of his. Diego suspected that, however Klaus’ power worked, he wasn’t really hearing with his ears, but the habits remained. “You were trying to scare him. You slashed him across the thighs.”

Diego remembered. The short, squat one, who wasn’t good at reading a situation.

“You nicked an artery. He tried to get up after you left, and…”

Klaus made a little _splush_ sound, horribly evocative. Then again, you didn’t have Ben for a brother and not learn what exsanguination sounded like a hundred different ways.

“I saved someone,” Diego said angrily. “A kid. They were beating the shit out of him. He’s fifteen.”

“I know,” Klaus said. “Rick--the one you hit in the throat with your elbow, whose windpipe you crushed, his name is Rick--says the kid deserved it, but I doubt it.”

Klaus gave Diego a brittle, fractured smile. He stood. He stood, and turned away and started pulling his bags out from under Diego’s bed.

“And what the fuck was I supposed to do?” Diego demanded, storming after him.

“Nothing,” Klaus said. “This isn’t about whether it was the right thing to do. It’s about this being _the thing that you do_ , and I can’t be around it. I can’t be around it like this.”

“What, sober? For Chrissakes, Klaus, there has to be a way--”

 _“There is no way!”_ Klaus practically screamed, spinning and glaring daggers at Diego. “Fuck, Christ, don’t you think I’d have found it? Don’t you think that old bastard wouldn’t have found a way to beat it into me? There _is no way_ to control it, except to shut the door. And the only way to shut the door is--”

“To be stoned off your ass, getting yourself beat to shit and god-knows-what--”

“Yes. Yes, that’s the only way. And let me tell you, Diego, it’s better than being sober, and getting to see what I see. Mike’s begging me to go to his apartment and feed his _dog_ , Diego. Rick’s just mad you killed him to protect some little beaner. Maybe they’ll stay here, and maybe they’ll follow me. Maybe they’ll follow me for weeks.”

“Tell them to fuck off, then.”

“Diego…” Klaus squeezed his eyes shut and put his hands over his ears, shaking his head back and forth. He looked up at Diego, and there were tears, the way there usually were. “Let’s not do this. Let’s not fight. This is just how it goes, with us.”

“There’s got to be a way. There’s got to be some-”

“There isn’t,” Klaus said, voice terribly gentle. “There’s not. There never has been. There’s just the way you cope, and the way I cope, and they don’t play well together.”

“I’m sorry,” Diego said helplessly. “But Klaus, my work--it’s important. It’s not about the fighting, it’s not just some adrenaline rush, I _save_ people! And you have some… some kind of death wish, and--”

“God, no,” Klaus said, stuffing the last of his stuff into the bag. “You think I want to be dead? I know all about being dead, Diego, and it’s nothing to look forward to. No, what I _don’t_ have is an alive-wish, and this is as close as I can come, without being in a coma.”

Diego sat at his workbench, heavily, hopelessly.

“So that’s it, then?” Diego asked.  
  
“For this time around, yeah.” Klaus said. “No--no hard feelings, okay?”

“Okay.” Because what else could he say? But Klaus was still giving him that hurt-puppy look, so Diego forced himself to rally, gave Klaus a smile and a wave at the door. “Go on, get out of here. You snore, anyway.”

“Like hell I do,” Klaus said, and he leaned over and kissed Diego on the forehead.

Diego caught his elbow before he could draw back, held him there for a moment and let himself lean into Klaus one last time. “Look, man, just… you know the number. Promise me you’ll call, if you get into trouble--or if you don’t, just let me know that you’re--”

“No,” Klaus said. “I’m not gonna start promising things, Diego. You know it wouldn’t mean shit. You’ll find me or I’ll find you, or we’ll stumble across each other, and we’ll forget what we both know.” Klaus made a face. “For a bit. How long did we manage this time?”

“Thirteen days.” He couldn’t even pretend like he hadn’t been counting.

“About par,” Klaus conceded. “Take care of yourself, Diego, in addition to taking care of everyone else. Okay?”

“What were you saying before, about promises?”

Klaus looked sad, Klaus looked heartbroken. But Klaus still left, and Diego let him.

_I’d save you before I saved myself, every time._

That didn’t seem to be an option now.

Diego wondered if it ever had been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra special thanks to Gremble, my beta-reader and freelance smut consultant.


End file.
